Social Media As a Platform for Body Positivity

Women of Color in the Media: Hollywood Needs a Transformation

Annika Singh

From the “Black best friend” trope to the “Indian nerd” cliché, racial stereotypes of women of color (WOC) have caused them to become heavily misrepresented in American media and the entertainment industry, leading to lasting effects in the real world. For years, the media has perpetuated these racist stereotypes through TV shows, films, and music videos, influencing impressionable audiences, many of whom will take these harmful stereotypes to be reality and use them as a basis on how to treat and perceive WOC in society.

In the media, the ethnic and cultural backgrounds of WOC are overemphasized, creating caricatures of racial stereotypes. Since the media and entertainment industries are vehicles of social change and awareness, this faulty representation has the power to change the way racial groups are perceived and treated in society through discrimination and legislation. The media has an easily impressionable audience, making stereotypes of WOC shaped around pre-existing prejudices incredibly harmful.

For example, East Asian women in the media are often perceived as a “Dragon Lady” or a “China Doll,” implying either a threatening or submissive personality with no middle ground. These stereotypes suggest that all East Asian women fall into these two categories, which is far removed from reality.

Constance Wu in Fresh off the Boat (2015), where she plays Jessica Huang, an “Asian tiger mom”

On the other hand, Black women are written off as “sassy” or “loud-mouthed,” enfolding all Black women into a negative stereotype of anger. Such stereotypes can make people have a negative preconceived notion about Black women. The media also tends to portray Black women as sexual objects, shoving them into the role of the Jezebel stereotype, which labels them as innately promiscuous or predatory. This toxic trope leads to a harmful misinterpretation and dehumanization of Black women. On the other hand, white women are portrayed as models of self-respect, self-control, and modesty. Additionally, the historical context of Black women as slaves and servants has caused people to associate them with manual labor jobs. In her career, Black actress and Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer, has played the roles of nurse, cleaner, and maid 21 times including two of the three roles for which she was nominated for an Oscar. Despite being a talented actress, she is forced to play these subjugated roles because of her race. Both stereotypes are negative and portray Black women in a demeaning way.

Black actresses rarely ever get the leading role in movies or TV shows, and are often forced to play the tropes of the “Black best friend” or the “Black supporting character,” rather than a main character. Golden Globe and Oscar nominees for the Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Screenplay categories are rarely Black women. This speaks volumes about the marginalized role of Black women in the film industry. In many shows, even if there are characters of color on screen, white actors still play the most prominent roles, showing how white people continue to dominate the narrative about race and discrimination despite not understanding the issue personally. White people are privileged and are far-removed from the reality of the capabilities of WOC. They do not know the many strong and positive aspects of WOC which deserve attention in the media.

Octavia Spencer (left) in The Help (2011) as a housekeeper/maid

Unfortunately, Hollywood has not been any kinder to Latinxs. Latinx people are the largest ethnic minority in the US, making up around 18% of the population. However, a look at 2,682 movies from 2000 to 2021 finds that tropes about Latina characters focus mainly on their sex appeal or the cleaning lady/maid stereotype. Between 2007 and 2018, 35.5% of Latina characters in the 100 top-grossing films were hyper-sexualized. These negative stereotypes reinforce perceptions about the jobs that Latinxs are supposedly limited to: maids, gardeners, and nannies.

A research study by professor Vera Lopez from Arizona State University stated that the problem of gender role expectations in the Latinx community is compounded because these representations are often presented in a negative light and are used to explain several “social problems” such as teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and other violence. This is illustrated in several movies like Quinceanera, a film about a fifteen-year old Mexican girl becoming pregnant. Stereotypes have real world implications for Latinxs because assumptions about their culture can lead to racism in youth settings, such as schools and juvenile correctional facilities where people rely on stereotypes to inform their practice. Rather than having genuine representation involving histories of abuse, trauma, violence, and poverty, Latinxs are used as a plot device to further stigmas surrounding teen pregnancy. Faulty representation creates caricatures of a person’s true identity, which not only leads to others perceiving them in a negative way, but also causes them to unconsciously conform to the stereotypes about themselves as a way to fit societal expectations. Gina Rodriguez, who plays Jane on Jane the Virgin, and is of Puerto Rican descent said, “It was a crazy feeling as a young girl to only see myself, my culture, portrayed negatively on-screen or, even worse, never portrayed at all. I felt like I didn’t belong or I had to assimilate to be accepted or successful.” As mentioned before, East Asian women are also victims of racial stereotypes. An example of a negative portrayal by the media is Anna May Wong, the pioneering actress who starred in the movie The Thief of Bagdad. In this role, she played the “Dragon Lady,” a harmful caricature of East Asian women that portrayed her as strong, deceitful, mysterious and sexually alluring. During her career, Wong played the “Dragon Lady” role in The Thief of Bagdad, Old San Francisco, and many more movies. Even though Wong appeared in over 60 films and played a variety of characters from temptresses to doomed lovers, she often complained about the parts she had to play, as she was perpetuating negative stereotypes that weren’t representative of all Asian women. In a 1933 magazine interview after leaving Hollywood, she said, “I was so tired of the parts I had to play. Why is it that the screen Chinese is nearly always the villain of the piece, and so cruel a villain--murderous treacherous, a snake in the grass. We are not like that.”

In addition, South Asian women have been placed under the submissive nerd stereotype. Hollywood tends to portray South Asian women as submissive, from roles like Mohini in Lemonade Mouth to Jess in Bend It Like Beckham. In Lemonade Mouth, Mohini, or Mo, is a hardworking girl who wants to try new things and have fun, but she is scared of disappointing her strict parents. She conforms to the obedient, nerdy Indian daughter, just like Jess in Bend It Like Beckham, who has to hide her love for soccer to please her parents. This is a distorted view of South Asian women, who are in reality progressive, educated, and multifaceted.

The perpetuation of these harmful stereotypes primarily by white producers and directors causes their normalization in society, which can influence things like parental and societal expectations on WOC and further isolate these communities.

When people with little knowledge of the culture of certain racial groups represent them in a negative way, it can lead to whitewashing and misrepresentation. This is harmful to these racial groups because negative perceptions about them propagate and harm their self-esteem. These stereotypes are mainly a creation of non-Asian movie producers, as there are very few people of color who are directors and producers in Hollywood.